Facebook combating vaccine related misinformation in Pakistan

Karachi- In order to combat misinformation related to vaccine, Facebook has launched an in-product education tool that allows its users in Pakistan to connect to information about vaccines from the World Health Organization (WHO).

This in-product education unit, available in Urdu, will help to connect people to authoritative information about vaccines and will link off-platform when people search any vaccine-related keyword searches on Facebook; they will receive an invitation to a group that discusses vaccines.

We are working to tackle vaccine misinformation on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the topic, said the official statement issued by Facebook.

We will reduce the ranking of groups and pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations in News Feed and Search. These groups and pages will not be included in recommendations or in predictions when you type into Search.

When we find ads that include misinformation about vaccinations, we will reject them. We also removed related targeting options, like “vaccine controversies.” For ad accounts that continue to violate our policies, we may take further action, such as disabling the ad account, Facebook said.

Facebook will not show or recommend content that contains misinformation about vaccinations on Instagram Explore or hashtag pages.

It is exploring ways to share educational information about vaccines when people come across misinformation on this topic.

The social media platform may also remove access to our fundraising tools for Pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations on Facebook.

Leading global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes. If these vaccine hoaxes appear on Facebook, we will take action against them.

For example, if a group or page admin posts this vaccine misinformation, we will exclude the entire group or page from recommendations, reduce these groups and pages’ distribution in News Feed and Search, and reject ads with this misinformation.

We also believe in providing people with additional context so they can decide whether to read, share, or engage in conversations about information they see on Facebook. We are exploring ways to give people more accurate information from expert organizations about vaccines at the top of results for related searches, on Pages discussing the topic, and on invitations to join groups about the topic. We will have an update on this soon, the Facebook statement said.